Chapter Twenty-Two
Now it made sense why they’d allowed him inside.
And it made sense why Ti had exited the room.
“Joe,” I screamed, my voice swallowed by the demon elder’s insane laughter. I spun in a circle, frantic. “Joe!”
“Would you rather we took your blade?” Ael roared. “We did not take your vampire solely to force your hand. We took him to also put you back in your place. You have lost your regard. You show us no respect. You have forgotten who we are. Now, we remind you.”
The demon elder stopped laughing abruptly and leaned forward to peer down at me. “Run along, little bug,” he whispered, but his voice filled the room like wind rustling through trees. “Run along.”
The old council members were not human, and they didn’t think like humans. They were powerful and power-hungry, but not the way humans were power-hungry. More like…dragons, shooting fire and guarding treasure.
And some of these dragons had wickedness sewn into their scales. In the council, darkness was greater by far than the light.
Ael was right. I had forgotten who they were, if I’d ever really known in the first place.
They’d taken my Joe.
Visions of Farrow lying on the table filled my mind.
I remembered her naked and bloody and hurt, tortured beyond what anyone or anything should have been able to live through.
And even though I’d taken her from Lilah and had saved her from the council, I was pretty sure that part of her had died there on that table.
And they had Joe.
The terror twisted into something cold, something hard, because the fear was paralyzing. And I couldn’t fight if I was hobbled by terror. I closed my eyes and drew in a deep, deep breath, and then I exhaled the fear.
When I opened my eyes again, I was in full-fledged psycho mode, and honestly, there was no better feeling than that.
I pulled my demon blade, and it was burning so bright and hot that the vampire elder shielded his eyes. The demon elder half rose from his seat, the scarlet of his stare reflecting the fire of the blade.
I thought he might come for it.
I wished he would.
“My dear,” the vampire called. “There is no fight here for you. Take your rage out on the siphoner and the hybrid, and we will return to you your vampire. Go now, while you can.”
I tilted my head and my smile caused even that ancient power to flinch.
“Do none of you know me at all? Did you really think I would slink out of here and do your bidding hoping that I could trust you not to hurt him? That I could trust you to give him back to me?” I shook my head.
“When I leave this place, it will be with Joe at my side.”
They only stared at me, silent.
“You’ve made a mistake,” I said. “I might have asked Anika to see you. I’d already planned on taking care of Gavin Voss.
I’d have brought him to you, because that’s more punishment than death could ever be.
But now, you’re the enemy. I’m going to retrieve my friend, and then I’m going to burn this place down. I hope you’re in it when it goes.”
“Kait,” Ael said, almost gently, “we are a council of power. We are the masters of lesser supernaturals. We have rules that govern us, and therefore you have protections in place, being what you are. But that does not mean we cannot hurt you. Stand down, pup, before we send you back to your people in pieces.”
He sounded honestly amazed that I was threatening to take them on. Astonished that I would even entertain for a second the belief that I might be able to hurt them, a panel of elders.
Ti had known, and she hadn’t wanted to watch the fallout.
Coward.
But smart or not, I would never even think about leaving Joe in the hands of a bunch of savage assholes. I would fight for him, and I had to believe I could get him back, or I would crumble.
He’d have done the same for me.
And I would give him my best.
Guards slipped from the back of the dais, some of them standing behind the elders, some of them, dark, faceless shapes, slipping down the steps on either side of the stage. Two of them urged the vampire elder up and rushed him away.
Ael and Kronor the demon stayed put, but the other elder left his seat, almost reluctantly, and walked away. He didn’t seem scared. He glanced at Ael, who shook his head and waved him away.
Apparently, he believed that he and the demon elder were more than enough to teach me a lesson.
I wasn’t planning on staying and fighting the two elders. They’d subdue me, humiliate me, hurt me, then throw me out of the building bloody and half out of my mind. And the demon elder would take my blade.
No. I was going to search for Joe.
If they wanted to get their hands—or their magic—on me, they’d have to catch me first. Much like the hybrid bastard they wanted me to bring them.
I whirled as Ael lifted a hand, a foggy magic beginning to dance around his palm, and ran toward the door. The guards simply watched, waiting for a command that didn’t come.
“Good girl,” Ael called. “Good pup.”
He thought I was running away from him. That I was leaving Joe behind.
“Adorable,” I muttered.
I burst from the room and instead of turning right, I ran left to follow the hallways that led deeper into the building. I shut out all the distant sounds of moaning and crying and screaming. I ignored the shadowy vampires who seemed to lurk around every corner and in every shadow.
I knew Joe, and my wolf had his scent. It was the still lingering human scent, subtle and fading, but still a part of him. And my wolf would be able to follow that scent better than I would.
Reluctantly, I sheathed my demon blade and shifted, then lifted my nose to the air. I pulled in and discarded every scent I got until finally, I latched onto Joe.
It took maybe two minutes before the elders realized what I was doing. I knew, because the supernatural guards wouldn’t have started trying to stop me without orders from their bosses.
Still, as I raced down hallway after hallway, there were surprisingly few attacks. I figured it was because the elders were coming. They’d want me tired and bloody before they kicked my ass and threw me out the door.
I had desperation fueling me, and my wolf didn’t need magic to fight. She had her teeth and claws, her speed and strength, and her need to protect herself. And more than anything else, she wanted to get to Joe.
He was the purpose of all the different parts of me. The woman, the psycho, the wolf.
He was the goal.
Even though they didn’t send an army of supernaturals to fight me, the ones who did show themselves were very nearly too much for me.
I could have fought them one-on-one as my wolf or as my woman without too much trouble.
But there was no one-on-one. They attacked me in batches, and I had no magic.
My wolf was a wall of fury and unbelievable muscle.
She was slow to feel pain, fast to heal, and more than a match for any vampire.
But they didn’t fight fair, and it was like they were cutting me down little by little, taking pieces of me until finally, I was weakened. I was less. I hadn’t been full-strength to begin with, not with my recent battle with Voss.
I wasn’t sure how I did it, but I found Joe.
I heard him roar, and when I finally got a moment to look, I saw him.
He was in a small vampire-safe holding room. Silver-wrapped bars through which he could peer but not touch. A padded table in the back with silver straps hanging from it, for when his captors might need to strap him down.
He was alive.
He was also injured, but not overly so. They hadn’t had time to do serious damage. His wounds were caused by his attempts to escape his cage. Magic would have knocked him out cold so he could have been whisked quietly away. I hadn’t even noticed he was gone until I’d turned to look for him.
But now he was awake, aware, and enraged.
Two guards stood outside his cage, one on either side of the door, and neither was armed. I was betting they had a key to the door, and I wasn’t going to ask nicely for them to hand it over.
I could feel my injuries, but they were like a background noise that buzzed quietly, waiting for me to take notice. I couldn’t afford to take notice. Not yet. Not until I was in the car with Joe and my people.
Then I could cry like a little baby.
But right now, I was the big bad wolf. I would take my hits, kick enemy ass, and save my vampire friend.
Alpha goals.
In the end, when my wolf leapt over a mound of dead or too-injured-to-move supernaturals, I lowered my head and growled at the guard who remained at the cage door. The other one had apparently run off, though I hadn’t seen him go.
The guard was a huge, muscular woman with short red hair and light green eyes. She held up a meaty hand. “I will kill you,” she said.
I rushed her, intent upon ending it quickly so I could shift and find the key. Unlike her friend, she wasn’t about to leave her post. She didn’t seem particularly scared, either, despite the fact that she’d just watched me rip the heads off a dozen supernaturals just like her.
“Kait,” Joe yelled. “Behind you!”
I whirled, a little more sluggish than I liked. Fucking vampires were always going to bleed a person, one way or another.
I knew who I’d find behind me before I saw him.
Not Ael.
The demon elder. Kronor.
Not even Ael would be quite as gleefully brutal as the demon. And more than stopping me from retrieving Joe or taking out his savage wicked rage on me, he was going to want my damn blade.
Everyone did, and he was a demon elder. The blade would be calling to him.
Could I kill him? I honestly didn’t think I could. Even if I hadn’t fought my way through the building and was completely healthy, and even if I’d held onto my magic, I didn’t believe I could take on an elder and come out the victor.
Joe hissed and I heard a sizzling noise, then smelled flesh burning. He’d forgotten he couldn’t touch the bars and had likely grabbed them, burning his palms not just from the silver, but from bars laced with magic.
He groaned. “Run, Kaity Bug. For now. I’ll be okay. Run.”
I lifted my nose to the high ceiling and howled, and then, because fighting a demon elder would require using a demon blade, I shifted.
I didn’t want to. I’d have healed a hell of a lot faster in my wolf form.
But Kronor wasn’t going to stand back and patiently wait for me to heal so he could teach me a lesson and steal my blade.
The guard continued to stand at the cage door, where she’d stay until the elder released her. I doubted he even saw her. He didn’t so much as glance at the bodies on the floor, and he didn’t attempt to step around the blood on the floor.
On the contrary—he pushed back his hood, then shoved his robe off his shoulders and tossed it behind him. And then he slid his bare feet over the wet floor, bathing his soles in the splashes of fresh blood that pooled there. Some of that blood was mine.
I shuddered. Regular demons were bad enough. A demon elder took that badness to a whole new level.
“Kait,” Joe pleaded. “Don’t fight that asshole. They’re not going to hurt me.”
Kronor’s laugh floated from deep inside him, and beneath the darkness was an undeniable joy. Or maybe glee would be the better word. He was enjoying himself.
Demons drew energy and strength and happiness from causing pain and fear in others. Just as a human might feel joy from puppies and kittens, or a supernatural might find happiness in helping those who needed them, demons got that same feeling from causing chaos and terror and agony.
And it was magnified by a thousand.
I took a deep breath and forced my fear away. I wouldn’t let him feed off a single emotion if I could help it.
“You are mistaken, little vampire,” Kronor said to Joe. “You have been given to me. And I will hurt you. I will hurt you a lot, but I can promise you that you will grow to crave it.”
It might have been strange for him to call Joe “little vampire,” but Kronor was enormous. Next to him, Joe was little.
And I was like a skinny branch standing next to a massive tree.
The elder seemed to grow larger by the second.
He was dressed only in a sort of loincloth situation, its lush green color contrasting with the ruddiness of his skin.
His body was on full display. He was old, true, but his body had been born in fire and ash, and it was never going to show the markings of old age.
“Why do you want to fight me?” I asked him, genuinely curious. “You’re a powerful council member, and I’m just a wolf. So why do you want to fight me?”
“Ordinarily,” he said, surprising me by answering, “you would be beneath my notice. But you have something that belongs to my world. To me. It irks me to see it in your possession.”
I clutched my demon blade, and immediately, it responded to my touch by getting hot, releasing a hot, swirling mist, and glowing with magic.
My blade was still a mystery. It continued to change, and it kept growing stronger. And it was mine. It was all the magic I had left, and I would die before I’d hand it over to the bastard.
“I will release your vampire to you,” he told me, “and I will walk away and let you leave with only the wounds you are currently attempting to heal.” He gestured at my blade. “Give me the blade. It never belonged to you anyway, little thief. Give me the blade, and I will release the vampire.”
He couldn’t take it from me, for some reason. He wanted it, craved it, maybe even dreamed about it. But he couldn’t take it unless I freely gave it to him. I didn’t know why, but I knew it was true.
“Trade,” he said. “His life for the blade. Surely you do not put a knife above his life?”
“Kait,” Joe murmured, horrified. “Don’t you do it. Don’t you do that, boss.”
“Trade,” I whispered. “Open the fucking door, and I will give you the blade.”
That was how, after protecting it, losing it, finding it again, and keeping it close as the only bit of magic left to me, I lost my blade.
It was back with the demons, and worse than that, a demon elder had a piece of me. He could call me to hell if he wanted, and I wouldn’t be able to fight it.
But I had Joe at my side when we left the council building.
And that was worth everything.